Lateralis (turkistan) Roaches

[JeffreH]

I know - a lot of people don't; but I've had limited success with this species without a substrate. I actually separated a two cultures of about 5k each this summer to be sold: one was allowed a substrate and one only had the bottom of the bin. I was only witnessing about a 50% ooth hatch rate in the bare bottom bin, and a lot of dried up ooths within the mix of frass and skins. Depends on the individual conditions, ambient humidity in the enclosure, what you are using to heat them and the temperature, etc.

[badkelpie]

I might do something I have heard of other people doing, leaving the colony unheated and fairly dry and hatching the ooths
separately. I'm thinking yogurt type cups with a damp paper towel and lots of tiny air holes and placed inside the heated dubia
tank. That way, I don't have to heat a whole colony and can choose roughly how many nymphs I have.

[Badger]

where would one purchase these? I'm currently only feeding crickets to my wood/ leopard/ and white's. How much more nutrition do these carry? And roaches don't make noise, so that is a huge bonus, because that is the only reason preventing me from breeding crickets.

[JeffreH]

badkelpie - I've heard of that working as well; let me know how it goes for you if you decide to try it out. I'm honestly just too lazy to separate ooths every couple of days - so I opt to use the substrate... helps to cover up some smell as well with Shelfordella being slightly smellier than other roaches. If I only had a couple of roach bins it would be practical, but the quantity I have puts me in a position where feeding twice a week takes long enough to not want to add any extra tactics to the mix =)

Dalton - I'll be honest in that I haven't thoroughly looked over this forum's rules for posting links to other classifieds and advertisements, so PM me and I can give you a site with private sellers that usually have the best prices. I can give you a few sites off the top of my head otherwise, but prices for lats are very steep at most:
Aaron Pauling.com
Greg's Exotic Inverts Home - Greg's Exotic Inverts
Home - Roach Crossing
DoubleDs

The lower three are fantastic roach enthusiast sites (along with Bugs In Cyberspace), these are some of the top names in the roach world for collector species - and quantities of feeder species aren't as high (hence the higher prices in general).

I've placed an order through 'The Bug Pros' before, but they have since been taken over by another company to my knowledge. They sold 1k for about the prices the OP suggested.

Starting to wish I hadn't sold off the bulk of my lat colonies... been getting a lot of requests for them lately. Wish I could help you out = /

[JeffreH]

Almost forgot, your nutritional analysis!

Firstly, this is NOT my work. This chart is the property of Dexter and Debbie at DoubleDs and Blaberus Home Page

SampleMoistureProteinFat Fiber Ash

B. Laterallis 63.63% 36.5% 5.31% 2.19% 1.95%

B. Dubia 61.18% 35.6% 6.75% 3.25% 2.01%

Meal worms 58.74% 21.0% 15.52% 2.01% 1.18%

Crickets 71.96% 18.5% 6.26% 2.09% 1.29%

G. Portentosa 64.09% 26.7% 5.05% 5.62% 1.37%



Direct link to chart on Dexter and Debbie's site:
http://www.doubleds.org/newfeederpg.html

This shows that roaches, ALL roaches, are substantially leaner than most other feeder insects. There are some things the chart doesn't account for, but its a good base and I've seen this one used in a number of feeder nutrional guides. G. portentosa = Madagascar Hissing Roach btw...

[Badger]

People use those as feeders ?!?! wow. and Thanks a lot for that table!

[JeffreH]

People use those as feeders ?!?! wow. and Thanks a lot for that table!

No problem = ) Debbie and Dexter are awesome folks. I've seen a couple other tables that yielded similar overall results: High protein and low fat is a common trend with all roach species, they tend to only vary slightly. It's strange, there really isn't a significant difference between the species or even between genus - whereas common larvae and cricket species can vary quite significantly.

And I assume your talking about Madagacar Hissing Roaches - I use em as feeders lol. The nymphs make great feeders, although I don't own anything large enough that I would want to feed an adult male to. They do climb glass... but they are relatively prolific breeders surprisingly in my opinion. I just feed off nymphs and cull occasional adults when the colony gets a little out of hand.